


The Secret Room

by TheWorldIsYou13



Category: Take That (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6305722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWorldIsYou13/pseuds/TheWorldIsYou13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark has a habit of disappearing, but he's usually somewhere which Robbie knows about. But sometimes he seems to disappear completely, leaving Robbie to await his return. One day though, he decides to keep looking and finds something he really wasn't expecting.</p><p>Little one-shot</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Secret Room

You would think that having moved in with Mark would mean I would know his habits and where he went when he needed a quiet moment to himself. And I do. To an extent. I know his usuals: I know that he will spend the majority of his time alone in the studio at the bottom of the garden. It’s quite custom for me to find him down there. On most occasions, I usually hear him before I see him. He’s always working; always doing something down there. I know he’s sent a couple of tracks to Gary before, asking if they were okay and if he needed to do anything to them. Just asking for the sake of asking really. I used to get emails like that, too, before I moved here; now I get asked personally, which, I suppose is a good thing. But it does mean I can’t lie behind a computer screen – not that I ever did that, because everything Mark writes is golden!

Anyway, I usually find him there. Sometimes I can find him in our room; and that is normally followed by a sleepless night (in a good way, of course). Sometimes I just find him up there reading or something.

Other times he might just be outside. Especially if the weather’s nice. I can’t help but find the image of Mark lying on the grass, taking in the sun, endearing to watch. There have been some times when I have lain down beside him. Hours of the summer are spent like that and it’s wonderful, believe me.

But there are some other times when I just cannot find him for love or money. I search everywhere; all his usual places and any other room in the house. In fact, there have been many times where I have searched the whole house (twice!) and still not found him. It does worry me sometimes, but he always comes back. I ask him where he was and he just shrugs and sits down on the sofa next to me (by this point, I’ve usually given up and decided to put the telly on, knowing he’ll turn up eventually).

Thing is, I know he hasn’t gone out, because I never hear any doors, therefore, he must still be in the house. But I never know where.

Take now for example, I’m currently walking up the stairs after having been outside and into the studio, heading towards our room. So far, there has been no sign of him.

I open the door to our room and, as I was expecting, there is no sign of him anywhere. In fact, the room looks exactly the same as it did when the two of us got up this morning.

I sigh and go to the next place on my list – the kitchen.

He’s not there either.

I sigh again.

It’s one of those days.

…

I don’t know why I decide this, but I do. Instead of heading towards the living room to sit on the sofa with the t.v. on like I usually do, I decide to spend a little time walking around the house once more. I finish looking downstairs and head up the stairs. I’m not expecting I’ll find Mark this way, but quite frankly, it’s two o’clock in the afternoon and there’s nothing on t.v. anyway. I refuse to watch another episode of Jeremy Kyle.

I make my way right down to the dead end of the landing, where we have a bookcase just sitting there (no, I don’t know either; ask Mark, he’s the one who put it there). I’m about to make my way back towards the staircase when I notice that there was something not quite right about how the bookcase was stood. Although it’s a tall bookcase – the size of your average door at least – it sometimes gets lost in the background. But, sometimes, the most mundane things are the ones you notice the most when there’s something not quite right with them.

That was certainly what this is. Normally, neither of us would give a damn about that bookcase. Occasionally one of us might take the odd book from there if we were bored or had a severe case of musical writer’s block (I’m still currently going through one of these phases and with Mark becoming a master of the disappearing act, it can be quite hard to focus on anything), but other than that, it gets left alone. So the fact that it is slightly pulled out and to the left, is odd.

I walk over to it. Maybe Mark had moved it to clean behind it and not put it back in exactly the same place (believe me, he has a habit of not putting things back in the right place – I can never find my laptop most days!). Even as I think it, it sounds odd. It’s usually pressed right against the wall and so never gets moved forward, only dusted on the odd occasion when one of us actually remembers it’s here. Today is different, though. Mark must’ve moved it for some reason.

I don’t know what made me do it, I’m not going to find him hiding behind it or anything, but I find myself pulling the entire bookcase forward.

It’s then that I see the door that was hidden behind it. Nothing special really, it’s just an ordinary, white wooden door; exactly the same as the ones that define this whole floor. But it’s not the look of the door that gets my attention, it’s the door itself. The amount of time that I have spent in this house over the years and the fact that I live here now means that I’m in total shock to find a door that I know nothing about. After all, how many people can say that they have been in one place for so long and not noticed something like a door?

Curious, I open it. I am presented with a staircase leading upwards. Okay, so now I’m more confused than I ever have been in my entire life. So maybe this is where Mark is hiding. It would certainly explain why the bookcase has been moved and why I can never find him.

I walk up the stairs, trying to not to make too much noise. The staircase is actually quite long for some reason and seems to turn slightly to the left. There are two things that I’m bewildered by: one, why have I never noticed this before? And two: why is Mark hiding somewhere I don’t know about? Is he trying to avoid me? Okay, so that’s three things, but I’m thinking up any possible questions that the right answer might come from as I walk up these stairs; which, quite frankly, seem to go on forever.

The staircase finally ends and I come face to face with another door (how many doors in this bloody place?!) This door is unpainted and the wood seems to be rotting slightly.

“Mark?” I call. He must be here, surely?

Of course, I receive no answer and so try and push the door open. It’s unlocked.

I continue to push it open. It squeaks and I cringe at the noise. I don’t really know why I’m trying to be quiet, but it seems like the natural thing to do in this situation, I guess.

Once the door is open, I peer inside in a state of awe. Beyond this door is a whole room at least the size of the living room two floors down.

It’s odd up here, though. Odd in the sense that nothing seems to match anything that you see in the main part of the house. There is one little lucky cat, moving its arm up and down in one corner of the room and a Buddha in the other – all typical Mark. There is one thing (well two) that takes my eye however in regards to the décor and the objects that fill this room. One is that there is a rather large window in the ceiling as it slopes down. There is a direct view of the sky from it. The second thing is that there is an old-style telescope sitting beside the bed. I never knew that Mark even had one of these. There’s also a desk, some paper, pens and anything and everything else that you could possibly think of up here.

There’s also a bed, which some might find strange, and on it lies the familiar shape of Mark lying on it underneath the sheets which cover it. He’s fast asleep, a tiny frown on his face.

I walk over to him as the door squeaks shut behind me. Bending down beside the bed, I put my hand on his shoulder and start to shake him. I don’t want to wake him, really, but I’m worried. Not about the fact that he’s napping in the early afternoon, that’s common, but it’s the fact he’s up here, away from… well everything really, that worries me.

He stirs and opens his eyes. At first he looks confused, but he soon comes to realise where he is and that I’m up here, too, before he sits up, never once taking his eyes off me.

“Rob?”

“Mark,”

“W…What are you doing here?”

“I live here, remember?”

“No, I mean, up here.” Mark replies. “How did you even manage to get up here?”

“You didn’t put the bookcase back properly.” I answer. Mark stays silent and I stand up and sit on the bed in the space next to him. “Why didn’t you tell me that you have a secret room up here?”

“Because it’s mine.” Mark’s annoyingly frustrating answer is.

“I know that,” I answer. I sigh before speaking again. “Do you know how worrying it is when you disappear and I have no idea where you’ve gone?”

“Sorry,” Mark replies quietly.

“Why are you up here, anyway? You alright?”

“I’m fine, I just wanted to think, that’s all. And it’s the one place I knew – well I thought – I wouldn’t be disturbed.”

“Sorry,” I say, though I don’t really know why I’m apologising really. He’s the one who made me worried.

“It’s alright,” Mark says, sitting up properly. “Should’ve known you’d find this room one day.”

“You okay though?”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem it.”

“I’ve just woken up!”

“Still.”

Mark sighs. “Look, I like to come up here and just look up at the sky sometimes. Been a few hectic years recently and so it’s nice to just come up here and clear my head or think about things occasionally. I know I’ve been doing it a lot recently and I’m sorry that I’ve worried you by disappearing. I just didn’t want you to come up and ask if I was alright every ten minutes. I know you mean well, but I just like some time alone occasionally, that’s all.” He explains.

“I understand and I’m sorry that I’m a pain in the arse sometimes.”

Mark laughs at that and pulls me into a hug.

“That may be so, but you’re my pain in the arse.”

I laugh, “Love you, too.”

We pull apart and Mark looks at me. “Hey, since you know about this room now, I might as well move that bloody bookcase somewhere else.”

“Nah, it’s fine where it is.” I answer. “Anyway, I can understand a lot of stuff in this room like the Buddha and the lucky cat – who, I might add, is bloody annoying me right now –“ Mark laughs “But what I really want to know is: how many UFOs have you seen with that thing?” I ask pointing at the telescope. Mark just laughs.

“Not many, though I think I saw one the other night over the house.” I know he’s joking, of course, but my inner geek is wishing this was true (naturally).

“When did you even get this thing anyway?” I say, standing up and making my way towards the telescope to get a better look at it.

“It was a present from my grandfather I’ve had it since I was about 16 though I only started using once I finally got my own place.” Mark tells me.

“Can I have a look through?” I ask, like an excited child.

“Go for it.” Mark says as he makes his way over to where I stand moving it to the end of the bed and pointing it up to the window above us. I bend down at look through it. There’s nothing there, of course, it’s daylight and so I see no stars or planets or anything and I avoid the sun like the plague, but it’s just the notion of looking through it that gets me excited.

Clearly Mark finds my inner astronomy geek hilarious and he keeps laughing at me. I continue to smile though.

“Tell you what,” Mark says, making me look up at him. “It’s supposed to be a clear night tonight, so what do you say to spending it up here with your new friend looking at the stars?”

“Really?!” I say, there is now no containing the five year old with in me.

“Yeah, why not? It’ll be nice to have someone to share it with.”

“Mark I love you!” I say kissing him excitedly and giving him the tightest hug I can manage.

He hugs me back carefully, clearly still amused by my way of actions.

“Love you, too. Now please let go of me before you squeeze any remaining air out of my lungs.”

“Oh sorry,” I say letting go of him. Mark just shakes his head and smiles.

“Come here,” he wraps his arms around my neck, pulling me closer to him. I wrap my own arms around him – more gently this time – before he pulls away and looks at me smiling.

“Right, now that’s tonight sorted. What do you want to do now?”

So for the hours until nightfall, Mark lets me explore his secret room. There are some amazing things up here that I never knew Mark even owned. He even has an old typewriter – with some lyrics to songs I even recognise and some I don’t on bits of paper in courier font from the little machine, in piles on the desk it sits on. For the songs I don’t recognise, Mark pulls out a guitar from under the bed (I recognise that, I bought it him for his 30th, and he says it’s one of his favourites. I’m still wondering whether he just said that because I was sitting there next to him, however) and plays them to me. They’re brilliant. One that really stands out is one about stars – clearly inspired by his hobby of stargazing. I sit there and listen to every word, every note and every melody.

And went nightfall comes, the two of us are with the telescope, a box of half eaten pizza sitting on the bed, gazing up at the stars above us. Mark was right, it is a clear night. The moon and the stars shine down on us and the smile I wear never once fades.

It’s only when the stars start to disappear and the sun starts to rise that the two of us actually decide to get some sleep. The bed’s only small, but that doesn’t matter, we make-do. I watch the sun rise for a few minutes longer, Mark already asleep with his head on my chest and his arm around my waist, before closing my eyes and let sleep claim me.

So next time you can’t find someone in the house and they seem to have disappeared, remember to look behind bookcases. You never know what you might find because believe you me, what I found isn’t just a room, but something else to share with the one I love; something that’s ours; something that no one else will know about. And quite frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
